Tale of a Savior
by Iccirrion
Summary: A savior born to the abandoned, raised from the ashes, set on a pedestal and forgotten in the darkness. The title of 'Savior of the Galaxy' is a fragile one, if it is not treasured, one will always rise up to steal it, to break the image of justice, yet those who seek it rarely obtain it, and those who hold it are often reluctant. ((Contains spoilers for Metroid: Savior))
1. Origins

The small colony world of TY132, known locally as Forthis, was by anyone's standards a beautiful planet, even after 30 years of colonization the terrestrial world, just beyond the borders of Galactic Federation territory, had yet to see any noticeable taint from its human population. This was by no means indicative of a lack of expansion, but rather, the colonists were a one of those few groups who prized the planet as an enjoyable place to live, rather than being solely useful for its minerals and wide tracts of unclaimed land that wasn't subject to taxation, and the planet already boasted three large cities, each one with a functional space port. Of course, protecting the natural state of the planet had required strict restrictions on the rate of industrialization and the majority of the planet's galactic income came from the trade of agricultural goods rather. Trading wasn't particularly regular however, the planet lay beyond the borders of Federation military protection after all, few were willing to make deals with a colony that could, in their eyes, disappear at any point due to pirate attacks or an internal revolution.

The people of the TY132 were perfectly happy with this situation however, a quieter life, separated from the wider galaxy was what many of them had come to this world for, and without any munition factories or any notable deposits of rare minerals, they weren't a likely target for pirate attack anyway.

In the year 2059 of the Cosmic Calendar, TY132 greeted the new galactic year much the same way as it did every year, by carrying on with daily life. For the people of the planet it was more important to celebrate the planetary year, after all, the colony had been established to be an escape from the wider galaxy, keeping in time with the Federation wasn't a priority for most, and all but the planets leaders carried on their days, not knowing or caring about the event. And tragically, it would be a year that only one of them would ever remember…and here, slowly, we will unfold, piece by piece, her story.

* * *

The wind blew through the empty streets with a vicious whistle, it wasn't particularly strong, but it carried death along with it, death that had been, and death that was to come, to people, animals, plants, buildings, to the very planet, a world-wide funeral bell rung by a single word: Kiol. Even to those who are unfamiliar with the concept, the term 'Planetary Exterminator Virus' or 'PEV' is chilling, without any further explanation one immediately understands the terror of such a thing, a virus, so powerful and unstoppable in its workings that once released, an entire planet, with everything on it is sentenced to death. Kiol is a particularly vicious strain, while unlike some it lacks sentience, perhaps that makes it all the more intimidating, with no thought, with no will, it mindlessly sweeps over a planet, spreading rapidly throughout the atmosphere, reproducing at almost unbelievable rates, within mere weeks entire Earth-sized planets are barren spheres. Nothing is ignored by Kiol, while organics are the quickest to fall, as the PEV disassembles them from the inside out and the outside in, even inanimate objects are subject to its destructive power, it turns entire planets to a fine dust, levelling cities, hills, forests, leaving an empty wasteland devoid of anything but the stench of death.

Forthis was already 13 days into the infection process, the stage at which life had long since ceased, pets, plants, livestock, everything was dead, and now the cities themselves were beginning to fall apart, slowly eaten away by invisible death. One would quickly, and quite rationally at this far into the process, declare the population of the planet gone, but unknown to all, among all the dead, there was one who was still dying.

Between the city of Joreth and her countryside home, a young girl, no more than three or four years old, was slowly walking. Every day she made this journey, hoping to come home and find that everything was okay before finding it wasn't so and falling into a deep sleep alone in the decaying ruins of her parents' house. Each day when she woke up, she would walk back into the city that was rapidly falling apart and scavenge what food she could find, none of it was ever intact, and eating only caused her more pain as she took in food that was covered in the very thing that was consuming the planet. However, her body resisted, it wasn't unheard of for there to be people who were resistant to PEVs, but even those who could survive the virus itself never survived long, after all, there was only so long one could go before hunger and thirst took over, and no one was willing to risk landing a ship to perform a rescue operation for the sake of a single person.

The girl obviously wasn't completely immune to the effects of the virus however, her long, raven-black hair was missing in patches, her skin flaking everywhere it was visible, her breath ragged as each inhalation brought more decay to her lungs, even her clothes were tattered, the PEV slowly eating away everything she had. Her pale green eyes were beginning to fail her as she stumbled forward, not even sure anymore if what she was doing had any meaning, yet she had no choice, what else was there for her but to give up and die.

The young girl paused, stopping, looking around her, her failing sight didn't make much of a difference, blurred or not, the scenery would look much the same, a pale brown wasteland littered with distorted buildings lying strewn about as if dropped out of a giants toy box. Perhaps she should just give up, she herself didn't quite know what was going on, but in the presence of such death, it was impossible not to glean even a little understanding of the concept. Would it hurt? Could it hurt any more than what she was going through now? In the end, she just wanted it to be over, it was why she made the journey, on the slim hope that this was all just a bad dream of some kind and that if she could just make it home, her mother would be there, her father, people she could wrap her arms around and cry to, people who could make it all better, but part of her knew that this journey would end the same as all the others.

That part of her quickly had to correct itself however, as a faint hum suddenly began to reverberate through the air, an unnatural, mechanical wind. The girl turned her gaze skyward as a dull, bronze-coloured, three-thruster spacecraft descended from the sky, a faint purple field pulsing out from the ship, forming a meter-wide buffer between itself and the atmosphere. She fell to her knees, the mere thought of the possibility that someone might be coming to rescue her filled her with such hope that she no longer had the strength to stand, merely watch as the craft carefully descended, the three thrusters rotating on limbs to form legs as the ship came to a rest a few yards from where she sat. There was silence for a few moments before a panel opened beneath the craft and a lift descended from within, upon which stood a single figure, tall and imposing, armoured in an orange armour suit. The girl couldn't see properly, but she could tell they weren't human, she'd never met an alien before…she'd only ever heard stories, but now one was coming to rescue her.

As the figure left the field generated by the craft, a similar one immediately sprang up around their own form in a sphere, creating a bubble that engulfed the girl as just a pace away, they stopped and looked down. Looking up pleadingly at the figure, she opened her mouth, to try and ask for help.

"Please…"

Her voice betrayed more of her condition than anything one might imagine from looking at her, it sounded barely human, the result of a vocal system already decaying and the entirety of her internal organs being damaged by the very air she was breathing. The figure noticed this immediately and knelt down, laying a hand so gently on her shoulder that the contact was almost non-existent.

"Shhh…be still little one, now is not the time for your strength, nor the place for your words, sleep now, and wake renewed."

The figure's words were spoken perfectly into the mind of the girl, layered with a gentle prompting to let go. In her condition she had no power to resist the psychic power behind the telepathy, her eyes closing and her body falling limp into the arms of the alien, who smiled sorrowfully beneath its helmet. Picking up the girl, it returned to the craft which would soon return to the sky and disappear into the black void of space, the alien speaking only a single line before entering the ship.

"You sleep a victim, little one, but you will wake a saviour."

* * *

 **Author's note: _Well, I've been absent from actually writing for some time now, and I feel it's about time to get back into it, I'm not going to try and push myself as hard as I did the last couple of times, which I believe resulted in me burning myself out far too quickly, so updates might not be as common as I would normally like them to be, but better to get a story that's finished slowly than the first few chapters in a week of a story that will never be finished. On this story itself, I plan it as some additional exposition for a Metroid idea I've had in my mind for years, it will be updated alongside the main story as so it doesn't spoil the main plot, but will focus on developing one of the main characters in that story. Chapter 1 of that story is my current project, so I hope to have it out within a fortnight provided I can keep my levels of procrastination to a minimum, feel free to PM me if you think I'm being too slow. To finish I'll simply say that my interpretation of the Metroid universe is incomplete, while I have played most games through to completion (though I have read up on the stories of each), I have not done so with all of them, and my knowledge of the manga, while not nil, is limited, and I write with this in mind, but I will continue with what I am aware of regarding the universe, any inconsistencies are likely due to me not knowing beforehand and I will continue to write the story in my mind rather than alter it to be something more correct. I do not own Metroid, nor claim to have any connections to the people who do and write this solely because I love the setting of the franchise and want to demonstrate my enthusiasm through creative writing. If you have any specific questions regarding what the canon of this story will be you can feel free to ask me in a PM or when you leave a review and I will do my best to respond._**


	2. Disappearance

**Note: _This chapter, while it doesn't contain any explicit spoilers, is intended to be read after chapter 4 of my story 'Metroid Savior: History'._**

* * *

Cosmic Calendar Year 2087 – Two weeks after the destruction of SR388

"Samus is gone?"

The tall, black-haired woman, dressed in a dull grey shirt and black jeans, gave the slightly younger, blonde man standing beside her, dressed in a similar, navy, shirt and khaki cargo trousers, a stern glare, which he matched perfectly, not blinking, not giving any sign that he was joking about what he had just said.

"You're sure about that?"

The man sighed and stepped forward, breaking eye-contact and he leaned his elbows on the balcony railing and looked over the slightly luminescent fields of yellowish grass towards the slowly rising sun. There was a slight pause before he spoke, his tone slightly hurt at his companion's reaction, "Siriel, do you not trust me yet?"

Immediately glancing away herself, Siriel bit her lip, she knew Mark wouldn't lie to her, or give her information he wasn't absolutely certain about, especially not about something as serious as this. She had been following Samus for nearly a decade now, picking up the pieces the hunter left behind, searching for anything she might be able to use to finally get to a position to confront the armored hero of the Federation.

Noting Siriel's reaction, Mark turned around, leaning back against the railing before continuing what he had been saying.

"The Federation recruited her for this mission on SR388, the metroid homeworld apparently, I'm not entirely sure about the details, but it seems that she ended up destroying a high-tech bio-research facility as well as the whole planet below, deliberately. The higher ups in the GF didn't like that too much from the sounds of it and immediately put out a bounty for her, dead or alive, the galaxy's new most wanted…but she just disappeared. I've checked with every contact I have, legit and underground, but there's no sign of her, which is strange for a freelance bounty hunter, she's not going to get paid without working, and she's not going to get work if people can't find her."

Siriel sat down on a simple wicker chair on the other end of the balcony and looked up at the morning sky and the handful of stars that could still be seen in the retreating darkness. A whole planet…although admittedly it was the third entire planet that Samus had destroyed, fourth if you counted the whole Dark Aether thing as a planet in its own right. But that said, it wasn't exactly surprising that the Federation wanted her caught, Zebes had been a case where Samus hadn't known or planned for the whole planet to be destroyed, they hadn't know that Mother Brain had been so thoroughly integrated into the planet. Phaaze had been as much an enemy in itself as it was a world, so destroying it was the only option left. But SR388, that had been a world the Federation had research outposts on, and it had been an unauthorized act of deliberate aggression by an individual who was already being watched by the Federation for her knowledge of their various bio-weapon programmes.

"Do you think she's dead?" After everything, that was Siriel's first question, if Samus really had disappeared, could it mean she was dead? Perhaps she was caught in the destruction of SR388, or had already been hunted down…she sincerely hoped she hadn't, what had everything up until now meant if Samus was dead before they ever even met?

Thankfully, Mark shook his head before pushing off the railing and taking a seat in a chair similar to the one Siriel was sitting on, "She reported in to the Federation after the incident, so we know she definitely survived, and there's been no reports of anyone cashing in the bounty for her, so I doubt someone's hunted her down. My best guess is that she's fled the Federation, probably outside of the territory entirely…in which case tracker her down is going to be impossible, there are dozens more worlds outside of Federation Space, and they don't have a unified communications network, so gathering information will be slow, and by the time we find something out, she might have moved on."

Siriel looked back down at Mark as he finished, that wasn't really good news, she needed to be able to find Samus when the time came, she had to, she had to…everything had been leading to this, keeping tabs on her for years, checking all the sites she visited, searching for some clue that might allow her to get the upper hand. She honestly had no idea what to do, the last three years in particular had been focused almost entirely on researching and investigating how Samus operated, but now, suddenly that wasn't an option.

"What should we do now?"

The fear in those words, that tone, the fear of pointlessness, didn't go unnoticed by Mark as he leaned forward in his seat and took a hold of Siriel's left hand, gently running his fingers over the back of her scarred palm, surgery had been able to restore her face, it was easier to move about in public without the scars, but she wanted the rest of her body left as it was, a reminder of what she had come from, a planet that was now no more than a dead orb of dust orbiting that could never again sustain life. He smiled up at her, a gentle smile of support, letting her know that he wasn't about to leave her.

"We keep working, right now, there's an opportunity for us, for you. Samus may be gone, but the need for her won't, and you can fill that gap, I can help you take her place, perhaps if you do that, you'll find what you're looking for."

Siriel couldn't help but smile back, as always, Mark was able to keep a level head, to focus on the big picture when she had gotten caught up in what they were doing right now. And it wasn't a bad plan, what better way to figure Samus out than to be her, to do what she did, and while he hadn't mentioned it, it was also an opportunity to encounter Samus. On the chance that Samus hadn't left Federation territory, she might continue working on the missions that needed her, she was the Galactic Savior after all, so there was always that chance. Although there were worries about that plan:

"You think we can do that? We still don't have that kind of equipment, it's been dangerous enough combing through the areas after she's already been through them."

Gently releasing Siriel's hand, Mark stood up and brought a fist to his chest, "You've got twice the hands, feet, eyes, ears and brains as her, just because you don't have some fancy alien armor suit doesn't mean you're not her equal." He was under no illusion as to the truth of Samus, he didn't know a single person who actually worked with her in any direct, consistent way, for all intents and purposes, Samus was alone, and no wonder, every time she worked with others, things seemed to go badly for them. During the Phazon incident, she was supposed to work with three of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy, but ending up killing all of them. The Federation Army's 7th platoon on the bottle ship was completely wiped out but for one member, who quickly found himself demoted and removed from the service.

While Mark didn't want to overplay himself, that was Siriel's biggest advantage, she had him, he wasn't as strong or as fast, he didn't have the same Chozo enhancements as his friend, but he could cover her back, he had his own network of contacts from his days in the army, he knew how to work the system to allow them to track Samus' movements through secure Federation channels, and he wasn't too bad on the battlefield himself.

Siriel stood up herself and wrapped her arms around Mark's neck, resting her chin on his shoulder briefly before pulling away, she knew she worked perfectly fine on her own, she had done so for years before meeting Mark, but she wouldn't want to work without him now. Being independent was all well and good, but it had been limiting, there was only so far one could go alone and, beyond the practical help, it gave her someone to talk to, someone to trust, someone she could be friends with.

"Can I leave it to you then to find us something?" Taking a step back inside the house as she spoke, Siriel suppressed a yawn, she had been up all night waiting for Mark to return with what had he managed to find out about Samus' location, a little sleep now would help her think of their next move when she woke up.

"I'll find enough to give you a choice, you go get some sleep, we'll do this well enough that Samus will have no choice but to come and find who's replaced her." Smiling warmly as he waved Siriel into the house, Mark turned back towards the rising sun and leaned on the railing again as she disappeared into the building.

Had it really been four years already? His time in the army seemed so fresh in his mind that it was hard to comprehend how long he'd been helping Siriel, that he'd been out of the army now almost longer than he'd been in it, but it had been worth it. Under Federation command he never felt like he was actually accomplishing anything, just going through the motions, but meeting her had given him a new purpose, she was so driven to confront Samus, to surpass her, even before he knew the reason why, he had decided to help her, and it had been worth it.

Whatever would happen, Mark knew one thing for certain, whatever the odds, whatever the situation, he would make sure that Siriel got her dream, one day he'd make sure Samus met her match, one day…

* * *

 **Author's Note:** _This is a pretty short chapter, but I want to be careful with giving things away about Siriel's story, as not to spoil anything for Metroid Savior. For those wondering, Siriel is indeed the woman who uses the second power suit in History and lured Samus to the station and Mark is the guy she is talking to at the end of chapter 3, you'll find out more about both of them as the story goes on, although Mark will for now mostly appear in this story, he won't get involved with Samus until later on in the story. Feel free to read and review, I'm especially keen to hear what you guys_ **think** _ **is going to happen or what your ideas about Siriel's past is and how she is connected to Samus, just what is her agenda? Why is she so focused on tracking down the hunter? What exactly is her relationship to Mark? Why is the grass on this planet luminescent? I love hearing any and all theories people have about my stories, so please let me know if you've got any interesting ideas.**_


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